2. tech-talk
  3. 1050265782

Audio Aero Mark II--using balanced and unbalanced

I have my new Mark II and I do love it. It is a litle curious feeling as I get past the lesser brands that come with the 20+page instruction books that talk about all of the neat settings. Being (perhaps?) typically French, the Audio Aero's instruction tells us: 'the way to do it, and that's that...enjoy(!). There are no alternative suggestions. Anyway, I have the McIntosh 2-channel 2102 tube amp(my God, it sounds good!) and I have a pair of speakers that each has it's own amp in another room. I will be buying a control center, but for now I want to run both from the Audio Aero Cd player. My choice is to run them with a pair of RCA 'Y' adapters out of the unbalanced or to use both the unbalanced and balanced outputs at the same time. I saw in one thread where MAJAMES(bless you, your responses are always great!) seems to be doing this. Has anyone else tried it?
unclejeff
albertporter's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
albertporter
4,949 posts
 
Mejames, the Wolcott and VTL are both single ended products with balanced input jacks serving as built in adaptors. There is no circuitry, just a jumper that leads over to the RCA (single ended) circuit.

I spoke to Wolcott about this a few hours ago and to Luke last year.

This would explain the gain issue, regardless of whether the Audio Aero is truly balanced or not.
unclejeff OP
1,313 posts
 
Okay. Now I have done it. I did an Audiogon search for adapters, thinking that I could order a pair of balanced XLR cables and plug an RCA adapter on one end. My search took me to an outfit called Audioparts(www.audiopartsinc.com). I Emailed my thoughts to them and a fellow named Stu offered to build me a pair of silver interconnects with the female XLR on one end and RCA at the other of a pair of six foot cables. The cost was $150.00. I figured for this experiment, this was a good idea. The cables are here and the improvement is very satisfactory. Oh, and Tireguy, yes it is louder.
tireguy
1,964 posts
 
Thanks for the update! I was curious what the out come was going to be.
unclejeff OP
1,313 posts
 
I think I am going to settle down with the audioparts cable. This solves my problem, for now on biamping. Then again, the Audio Aero only allows me to load one CD in it at a time, which is a bummer when I want to play several CD's without having to get up to change them. I looked at the back of my Yamaha CD player (five disk-loading capacity) and, lo and behold, it has an optical interface.........
More to discover